Taylor John-Lewis was recently awarded a POST Summer Fellowship from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to work on vision loss resulting from brain tumors in children with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1).
Taylor is a rising senior at Washington University, majoring in Biology on the Neuroscience Track, with a Double Minors in Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology, as well as African and African-American Studies. She is also a Washington University John B. Ervin Scholar and a Choate Icahn Scholar.
Taylor is working with Caroline Tang, MD, PhD on a project using Nf1 mice with brain tumors, called optic gliomas. They are trying to determine why the nerves that carry vision from the eye to the brain get damaged by these tumors. Damage to these optic nerves can cause vision loss, which Taylor aims to find ways to reduce.